BLR News

4/26/2005

Compensation.BLR.com publishes "Top 100" Questions About New Overtime Law

Old Saybrook, CT - April 26, 2005 - Employers have been complaining about the complexity of overtime and payroll regulations since the Federal Labor Standard Act was enacted in 1938. So while businesses welcomed the FLSA overtime changes that went into effect in August 2004, labor unions fretted over workers losing overtime pay. Now, more than half a year after the new law's implementation, lost overtime pay is not the big issue. Instead, many of the complaints are coming from employers - the new regulations are still as confusing as ever!

Compensation.BLR.com, where employers go for reliable compensation data and tools, has just compiled a Special Report that answers the most common questions about the new law. "Top 100 FLSA Overtime Q&As: Most Frequently Asked Questions about the New FLSA Overtime Regulations" is free to employers at http://www.blr.com/82008400/PRS13

The payroll questions indicate the range of practical problems that employers face as they try to determine who is eligible for overtime pay while balancing tight pay budgets. Most questions are predictable - for example, who is exempt from overtime pay and under what circumstances? But many queries illustrate the complexity of applying the law in today's modern workplace.

Take, for example Question 24: "If an employee takes more than 1 smoke break per 4-hour pay period, is it acceptable to deduct that time?" Or Question 29: "How do you calculate overtime when someone works on a piecework basis?" Other questions deal with workers sharing jobs or having to travel to distant work sites, and so on.

According to Susan Prince, senior editor at Compensation.BLR.com, "It's no wonder that so many employers said in our recent survey that they've been audited by the Department of Labor for wage and hour problems - it's still very hard to comply with this law."